Issue Tracker Component

The Macrotone Consulting Issue Tracker component has its origin in a ‘Problem Management System (PMS)’ developed many years ago on an Oracle Database using Oracle Forms. It migrated to an Oracle Application Express (APEX) based application and incorporated ideas from a sample APEX application. This version takes the ideas and implements it upon a MySQL database using Joomla as the interface. It runs upon Joomla 2.5 and Joomla 3.2. As time and circumstances permit some of the original program features may/will be re-implemented on the new platform.

Wikipedia defines an Issue Tracking system (ITS, trouble ticket system, support ticket or incident ticket system) as a Computer Software package that manages and maintains lists of Issues (computers), as needed by an organization. Issue tracking systems are commonly used in an organization's Customer Support / Call Centre to create, update, and resolve reported customer issues, or even issues reported by that organization's other employees. An issue tracking system often also contains a Knowledge Base containing information on each customer, resolutions to common problems, and other such data. An issue tracking system is similar to a "bug tracker", and often, a software company will sell both, and some bug trackers are capable of being used as an issue tracking system, and vice versa. Consistent use of an issue or Bug Tracking System is considered one of the "hallmarks of a good software team".

This implementation is suitable for a small or medium sized organisation to record and efficiently respond to reported problems / issues.

Release Versions

Release 1.6.6

Continues the current practise of correct any problems discovered with the earlier 1.6.5 release, and also is also intended to implement a few more requested changes suggested by users.

Release 1.6.5

This release will be to correct any problems discovered with the earlier 1.6.4 release. It is also intended to implement a few more requested changes suggested by users.

Release 1.6.4

This release corrects a few problems discoverd in the earlier 1.6.3 release. It is also intended to implement a few more requested changes suggested by users, such as an export facility for the issues list (Joomla 3.x only).

Release 1.6.3

This release corrects a few problems found with the earlier 1.6.2 release. It also, as intended, implements a few more requested changes suggested by users.

Release 1.6.2

This release corrected a problems found with the earlier 1.6.1 release. It also implements a few requested changes suggested by users.

Release 1.6.1

This release correct a few problems found with the earlier 1.6.0 release. It also introduces a new scheduled task to Auto Close issues in 'waiting for user' status which are not responded to in the specified time period.

Release 1.6.0

This release adds two new requested changes. The first is a restructuring of the Issue Progress information into its own separate table, and provides individual control over each progress record change. The second is the introduction of Custom Fields such that each project may have as many or as few specific fields that a site may desire for the collection of additional information to aid in resolving problem reports. There is also a change to permit the addition of mutliple attachments to an issue in the front end, and for the user to provide a descriptive title for each attachment.

Release 1.5.2

This release adds the ability to configure issue assignees by project, which is used in preference to the component defined assignee. It also corrects two major and several minor problems discovered after the earlier 1.5.1 release.

Release 1.5.1

This release corrects one major and several minor problems discovered after the earlier release.

Release 1.5.0

This release accomodates installing upon both Joomla 3.2 and Joomla 2.5 in one package. The code base has undergone some extensive review and a number of minor fixes incorporated. One major bug reported on a couple of Joomla 3.1.x sites involving saving of a project in the back end has also been resolved.

The release has introduced tow major new features. The first is the incorporation of advanced auditing making use of the underlying database features, but it does require the hosting site to provide the ability to use database triggers. No all hosting sites provide this feature but most of the larger suppliers do.

The second major feature is the ability to run scheduled tasks via a cron entry. The topic of scheduled tasks is quite large and the details are provided in the User (and Design - requires registration) Guides. We have currently implemented two reporting tasks: one for a summary report, and one for an assignee status report. In addition we have also implemented a mechanism to fetch 'email' from an IMAP or POP3 account enabling issue reports to be submitted, and updated via email. Before implementing this upon your site we strongly recommend reading the documentation so that you are acquainted with the implications.

end faq

The documentation is accessible from the 'Joomla extensions menu' on the right hand side of this page.

Modules

There is a released module mod_latest_issues available in the download area. This module has now been incorporated within the main component release package since version 1.4. The documentation is included as part of the main Issue Tracker documentation.

Issue Tracker Overview

The documentation in PDF format and also as web pages is available upon the site. [Please see links under 'Joomla Extensions' on the site.] There is an additional Issue Tracker Design guide which was previously part of the main documentation and it is also available to registered users in both formats. This document only presents a brief overview of the functionality.

There are three main parts to the component, users (who are Joomla registered user and non-registered Issue Tracker only users), projects and issues (sometimes also known as tickets, problem reports etc.)

Users: Within the component users all have a specific role, whether it be as a customer (or user of the web site) or as a member of staff (where they may be a manager, project lead, project member etc.) The component assigns a role to each user which is managed by the administrator. Each user is also assigned a default project, which is used to set a default when an issue is raised. Non-registered users can be created automatically when a guest raises an issue, and these are used to assist in identification of user issues.

Projects: These are distinct 'category like' items, which may or may not consists of separate sub-projects. i.e. If we have a main project named 'New component', we may have sub-projects named 'Release 1.0', 'Release 2.0' etc. As many levels of sub project can be created as desired but usually two or three is sufficient for most projects. Projects have a description and a start and end date. They also have a target end date, which may or may not be the actual end date of the projects.

Issues: Issues are the problem reports themselves, raised either by the site users themselves via a front end screen, or on their behalf by a staff member within the site administration. Issues are associated with people, as they are identified (or raised) by a person; a person is also assigned to work (or manage) the issue through to completion. An issue is also associated with a project or sub-project. The issue will consist of a number of separate pieces of information such as a description; a series of progress steps; and a resolution. All of these are tracked by the component.

Most of the activities performed by the component take place in the back end, although certain displays are available as menu items on the front end of the site, and it is possible for site users to raise an issue (if configured). This may be configured to require site users to register with the site or may be open. If open then the user is required to enter certain pieces of information other wise the issue will not be saved. Captcha entry is configurable using ReCaptcha. There are also Spam and IP blocking configuration options.

We trust this brief overview is sufficient to cover the main features of the components and you are requested to look at the latest PDF documentation for more information.

If you find this component useful, you are requested to raise a review on the Joomla Extensions Directory, and possibly consider making a donation to assist in providing support and future enhancements.

We would like to thank all the people who have donated their time and effort in providing translations for our extensions, either individually or as part of a translation team, so that they may be used by the wider community.

We will consider the use of colours for the status on an issue for a future release, but you are not quite correct on the anti-spam options. Yes there is Re-Captcha, but there are also other features such as word filtering, ip blocking, checks on the number of links, and the ability to ban specified email addresses and URLs. The word filtering we found in particular to be very effective in cutting down spam.
We have (and still are) considering other options but wonder whether it is the best approach to build all of these tools into a specific product. A better approach, which we ourselves use and strongly recommend is to use something more site wide, to effectively filters out 'bad' input for all components on the site, rather than have each separate component performing the same task.
Thank you for taking the time to comment, we appreciate your input.

We welcome any translations that users might like to contribute. All our current translations have been contributed by current users.
We provide details of how to perforrn a translation in the following link.
Basically there are three language files to translate which are then wrapped up into the downloadable language zip file. We accept the zip file via email and place it on the site so that users can access it. All credit and author web site links (when provided) are honoured.
If you have any further questions please email us at our address support@macrotoneconsulting.co.uk.

Hi just want to ask if a registered user can edit a certain issue?.. coz ive been playing with the extension it seems that i cant edit the issue (in-progress) i made. or is their something i miss?.. thanks in advance
BTW im using the latest verion 1.3

It should certainly be possible for a registered user to be able to add (edit) additional information to an issue they have raised themselves. If the person is an issue administrator they are able to edit any issue, whether they raised it themselves or not.
It is not possible for a user to edit an issue raised by another person if they are not the person who opened the issued, and if they are not the person assigned to 'work' the issue, and if they are not an issue administrator.
Check the (backend) issue to check that the issue is indeed raised by you. They is also a menu option 'show_own_issues' in the front end issue list view that may not be enabled preventing you from seeing your issue and hence preventing you from editing the raised issue.

Comment last edited on about 1 year ago by Geoffrey Chapman
Geoffrey Chapman

Guest - vfundu

Dear sir
Thank you for your execelent support. I was unclear of how the features worked of the extension. Your help was clear and I now have the extension running great. I recommend this extension to anyone who is looking for a help desk feature for their company.

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